Tag Archives: Online Education

A Quick Note About Colleging in Fall 2020

02 Saturday May 2020

Posted by in 1, Academia, culture, Work, Youth

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Georgetown University, front entrance screen shot (cropped), Washington, DC, May 2, 2020. (https://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/visiting/directions/).

There is a standing COVID-19 pandemic debate about what higher education institutions should do about Fall 2020, when the Class of 2024 will begin their postsecondary studies, and when millions of other students are supposed to return. There are many who believe that because of where things are, that schools should remained closed through the fall, and that university heads should have already made this decision. At one point, Harvard University floated the idea of postponing its Fall 2020 semester to January 2021, but its President Lawrence S. Bacow recently made the announcement that Fall 2020 will proceed. How it will proceed, delayed, partially as online, gradually as face-to-face, no one knows.

But there are a series of if-thens that colleges and universities could work out to make it possible to open up campuses for in-person classes in Fall 2020 and to ensure a safe and healthy campus community for all involved.

1. No matter when they open, these institutions should test every student, staff member, and faculty member for COVID-19. They cannot rely on the honor system to make sure everyone is not contagious.

2. Those who do test positive should be afforded every opportunity to work or teach from home, or to take classes online.

3. Those who do get sick must be quarantined and allowed to make up their work, even if this takes more than a semester, for up to two years.

4. In the event that the US remains on this disheveled trajectory of every state for itself, many schools will not be able to open by mid- or late-August. This is where opting for a quarter-system semester may be best. A 10-to-12-week semester that begins around September 30 would provide enough time for university communities to prepare for a shorter semester, and to prepare to test everyone for COVID-19. But this option only works well if universities announce this soon, between now and June 30.

5. In the event that colleges and universities wait until after early July to think through their options, that will leave only three plausible scenarios for Fall 2020 on the table. One of them would be to opt for an even shorter semester, a half-semester of six-to-eight weeks, similar to a summer session format, but for everyone, starting sometime in mid-to-late-October.

6. Or, universities could just opt for a full-blown semester (however they decide to define this) online, from start to finish, even for incoming first-years. Although this breaks the tradition of welcoming freshmen to universities and upwards of two months of Welcome Back activities, it does have the advantage of protecting everyone while the shit storm continues.

7. Or, if it comes to it, universities could cancel the semester. But this is the worst of all possible options. Contingent faculty like myself would be out of work for four months without any interventions from universities or governments. Students may opt to stay local or try for two-year institutions (already cash-strapped prior to this pandemic), which would lower enrollment and may put even more pressure on higher education institutions to cut faculty and staff.

The truth is, there are no perfect solutions here. Add to this the real possibility that the US version of this pandemic might be with us until 2022, and even then, sans an effective vaccine. Which means that we could be having this same conversation about Spring 2021, Summer 2021, Fall 2021, and Spring 2022. No one wants that, certainly not me.

Which is why options 1., 4., and/or 6. are the best ones. They offer the most in flexibility for everyone involved, and balance safety and health with the need for people to work and enroll in school. All of them are likely expensive. But it’s less expensive than paying off billions of dollars in lawsuits if students, staff, and faculty die in the middle of a lecture or an event. It’s less damaging than rendering millions to unemployment. But we will all see how well America’s college and universities will succeed and survive this pandemic.

edX and Ex-lax (& Higher Education’s Future)

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by in 1, Academia, culture, Eclectic, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture

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Ex-lax Chocolated Laxative, September 26, 2012. (http://overstockdrugstore.com).

Last May, Harvard and MIT announced a $60 million partnership that would provide free online courses to 600,000 students worldwide. That this came on the heels of an experiment in which former Stanford professor (and now co-founder of the Udacity.com online classroom platform) Sebastian Thrun made his “Introduction to AI” course available for free online in the fall of 2011 says something. The current model of providing a college education or postsecondary training – for-profit, public, community college or otherwise – will be dead for most students by 2030.

What will this new form of higher education look like? Will students who can now take a couple of Harvard or MIT online courses for free so overwhelm these schools that paying customers will also demand a free online education, and lead to the disintegration of higher education as we know it?

The answer lies somewhere in between higher education feast and famine. For the selected few, Ivy League and other elite institutions will continue to thrive, no matter the costs. Parents will continue to send their kids to Harvard, Stanford and Georgetown – and students will enthusiastically attend them – for far more than a degree. The social networks that students will build at these universities and use as alumni for jobs, careers and even marriages easily outweigh the high cost of tuition. Just ask the Obamas.

For most college students, though, edX is but the tip of the spear. Ultimately, a decade or so from now, going to college will be as simple as clicking on an app on your iPhone, iPad, or whatever an Apple, a Google or some other corporation comes up with next.

edX logo, May 2, 2012. (http://news.harvard.edu). Qualifies as fair use under US copyright laws – main subject of post.

No one institution or single university collaboration can take charge of this transition to a national and international online higher education experience, even with edX’s implementation. But with an Apple or a Google’s history of collaboration, technical expertise, and innovative vision, they can pull off the moving of the higher education platform to an accredited application. One that even Harvard, MIT and Oxford could get behind – though they may have to hold their noses at first.

By the time this transition is complete, online college – or, dare I say, iCollege – will look more like a combination of EA Sports’ Madden NFL ’13, Skype, Twitter and Facebook than the standard threaded discussions and video recordings we have today. It will be a process where any professor could be put in a lab with sensors and a classroom full of students asking every possible question and providing every possible answer to a series of topics that would add up to a course. And an Apple or a Google could do this over and over again for the thousands of possible courses an undergraduate student could take, in the US or anywhere in the world.

That alone would make this a decent revolution, at least technologically. Combining it with Apple’s or Google’s ability to negotiate agreements with accrediting agencies and with universities across the country, though, would make iCollege an all-out revolution. Because of these partnerships, the future iCollege would be light-years beyond the new edX, as this would enable students to transfer their credits to a UC Berkeley, Harvard or New York University if they so chose to take an in-person course whenever necessary.

Corridor in code, The Matrix (1999) screen shot, September 26, 2012. (http://luisangelv.wordpress.com).

This could be a one-time $500 million investment that could yield tens of billions in profits annually. In the process, it would make higher education much cheaper, more democratic and less exploitive of students and government resources. For an industry or job-related certificate: $5,000. For a two-year or associate’s degree: $10,000. For a four-year degree: $24,000.

There would be casualties, of course. Testing entities like the College Board, Educational Testing Service, and ACT will somehow have to adapt to this democratization of higher education or die out. The current set of for-profit institutions, community colleges and large state public institutions will have to become specialists in specific career training activities, partner within an iCollege consortium, or go out of business. Like it or not, this is the road that American and international higher education is on, one rapid stride after another. But it’s all for the better. Or at least, it could be?

Closing Walls and Ticking Clocks

08 Tuesday Jun 2010

Posted by in 1, Academia, Eclectic

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Source: "Your Time" Kaplan University Commercial, 2009

“I stand before you today to apologize. The system has failed you. I have failed you. I have failed to help you share your talent with the world and the world needs talent more than ever. Yet it’s being wasted every day by an educational system steeped in tradition and old ideas. Well it’s time for a new tradition. It’s time to realize talent isn’t just in schools like this one. It’s everywhere. It’s time to use technology to rewrite the rules of education. To learn how you learn so we can teach you better. It’s time the university adapted to you rather than you adapting to it. It’s time for a different kind of university. It’s your time.”

These words come from a Kaplan University commercial, in which actor James Avery (Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with Will Smith) portrays some overburdened professor with a guilty conscious about

Kaplan University Logo

the state of higher education today. This commercial has been running off and on for more than a year now, but seems to be running more of late during prime-time hours on the channels Noah and I normally watch (Cartoon Network, The Science Channel and History International). It’s a shameful commercial, really, as it alleges a reality that hasn’t existed in higher education for at least twenty years.

But that’s almost besides the main point. The commercial, when it comes right down to it, makes numerous assumptions about education, students and faculty that shows a sense of arrogance on the part of the commercial makers and Kaplan University. One, that higher education is only about earning a piece of paper that enables students to get better-paying jobs and a better start to a career. Two, that the main issue most students face is the inconvenience of a traditional four-year college education — because most four-year institutions require face-to-face contact with their students — not academic preparation, financial aid or other social and psychological issues. Three, that a strictly online education can successfully do all the things that traditional four-year institutions are currently doing, and then do it better.

I’m far from the first person to defend traditional four-year institutions, many of which don’t offer evening or weekend classes, summer classes, distance learning or online opportunities at the undergraduate level. But to suggest that it’s “time the university adapted to you rather than you adapting to it?” Really?

By this, does Kaplan mean that students seeking to earn a bachelor’s degree need only a university that meets their needs, their needs for a job, for instance, rather than a place that helps them learn how to think for themselves? A place that helps them understand how and why they believe what they believe in politically, socially, culturally, to expand their horizons, their circle of friends, their networks of contacts for their careers and not just for jobs? Institutions that enable students to look within, to see the persons they want to be for now and the future? Is this what Kaplan University means when it says that typical colleges and universities are part of an “educational system steeped in tradition and old ideas?”

Let’s put this another way. Would “Professor”James Avery, for instance, recommend that aspiring actors hone their acting chops online through Kaplan University, or would he recommend brilliant drama and theater arts departments at “traditional” four-year institutions? There are limits to what can be done educationally speaking online when it comes to social interactions that lead to connections, friendships, business networks and learning. Kaplan University should keep that in mind when it promises the moon and the stars to students whose only concern is a better-paying job. Both perspectives are as short-sighted as a three-month-old baby.